Feu de Joie
by The Readers Muse
Summary: "What do you think?" Aaron asked. Passing him the binoculars as the long grass tickled down the tattered line of his sleeves. Watching the small group of people huddled around the tiny fire. Bunched up in late-fall layers and hunger-drawn expressions. Clearly cold, but smart enough not to make the fire any bigger.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Walking Dead and/or Fear the Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** A long time ago I came up with a way to crossover twd and ftwd and basically let the outline sit in my drafts for a year. This is set sometime in a better future of season seven, where Daryl and Aaron are back out recruiting and everyone is back at Alexandria. – There was an interesting fan theory when Tobias became popular on ftwd in season one that Eugene could possibly be the "Uncle" that checked on him every once and a while. I liked that so I rolled with it.

 **Disclaimer:** adult language, canon appropriate violence, angst, drama, family.

 **Feu de Joie**

"What do you think?" Aaron asked. Passing him the binoculars as the long grass tickled down the tattered line of his sleeves. Watching the small group of people huddled around the tiny fire. Bunched up in late-fall layers and hunger-drawn expressions. Clearly cold, but smart enough not to make the fire any bigger.

"Hard to figure," he grunted, not above telling it plainly as he squinted. Trying to figure them out as brutal skiff of wind forced an angry little shiver out of him. "Bunch of dark horses."

"We haven't been watching long," Aaron pointed out, taking the binoculars as he handed them back. Peering through them with his elbows up as the huddled group talked quietly. "Maybe they're part of another group? A bigger one? Either way, I don't like the sound of that cough. I don't know if we can wait long enough to be sure about this one."

He nodded. More of a tip of a chin into his collar than anything, as the baby - safely hidden in the center and probably warmer than any of them combined let go of a fussy cry. He'd give 'em this much, they were sharp on the uptake. What with the sound being quickly hushed by the old one, a lady so wrinkled and layered up on the stretcher they were carrying her around in that all you could see was the white frizzle of her hair.

"Could leave some meds on the road. See if they take 'em," he pointed out. Remembering the water and note that had been left for them, even though they'd been too paranoid to risk it. "The kid is young, year tops. A'int gonna have its shots or nothin'. Judith didn't either until we came here. The world was full of dangerous shit way before everything went to hell."

Aaron nodded.

"I've got the vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella in my bag - oh, and the first dose of Hep B, but the rest is back home."

Something itched - upset and rumpled like hackles prickling to rise - in the back of his mind. Something that was telling him there was more to this. That something about this was off somehow- missing. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on as his scanned over the group again, frowning.

It was a mish-mash. From what he could tell they only had hand weapons. Machetes, metal baseball bats and long grip hammers just like the ones Tyreese has favored back in the day. There wasn't a gun in sight. And the people? Well- he had no idea how the old broad had made it even half a mile in these woods. Not to mention the baby and it's exhausted looking mother that looked barely twenty- if that. The rest of them were a range of ages from teens to late thirties, maybe.

Only from this angle he couldn't pin-point who the leader was.

There was no obvious choice.

No one who'd stepped up to the plate that he could see.

Which didn't make much sense either.

They had to have had a place. Somewhere safe. _Sheltered._ Somewhere the baby had been born and the old one had been protected from the walkers. Somewhere they have didn't have to run so much. So, what'd happened then? Why were they out here? In the middle of butt fuck nowhere just before winter?

"I guess it doesn't matter _how_ they've made it this far, they're here now. I usually like to do more background work first but they aren't going to make it much longer out here. Not with winter coming," Aaron murmured, all but decided as he stowed the binoculars and slowly eased the zipper closed. "The fact that they've made it this far without guns, with a newborn and elderly makes me think they're the kind of people we are looking for. I don't know. Maybe they've just been lucky up until now."

"Or smart," he muttered quietly as the cool barrel of a gun firmed politely into the back of his neck.

* * *

"Hello."

They both did a double take when the voice behind them sounded out young. Scratchy. With just a hint of hormonal pitch to let you know what you were dealing with. A teenager, tops. Young enough that they probably would have been in high school when the virus started.

Only the gun pressed into the back of his head didn't waver.

 _Not once._

"Not to be rude, but I think me and my group would feel a whole lot safer if you handed me your weapons," the voice explained. Pleasant but firm, like they were nobody's fool as the moment stretched and his respect for the unknown gunman only grew. "Just push them behind you. That's right. _Good._ Then we can talk."

The hair on the back of his neck pickled when his eyes darted over to the fire and found only four people standing wearily beside it. The mother, the baby, the old lady and a pile of mean looking muscle with a spiked piece of pipe for a weapon. The rest had them surrounded in a loose semi-circle. Weapons in hand like a reminder but not outwardly threatening. Watching closely – suspicious. Mostly silent save for their eyes that darted from the two of them to the faceless kid behind.

 _Guess they'd found the leader after all._

"Alright," Aaron soothed, unstrapping the buckles on his holster and tossing it as instructed. "No problem. We aren't here to cause trouble."

"I know," the voice remarked, bold but without a trace of smugness. "I've been listening. You can turn around now."

So, they did.

 _Slowly._

And honestly, he could have pegged what he was going to see long before he saw it. _It was a kid._ Dark hair curling long around the hitch of his neck. With a look to him which hinted that before all this he'd probably had some heft to him. Middle school baby fat, most likely. He was younger then Glenn by half a decade, give 'er take. But leading this group all on his own, by all accounts.

"Sorry about that," the kid murmured as a man with a limp and a woman with curly wasp-nest hair hunched down with rabbit-prey pulses and stale-sweat smells as they picked up their weapons and moved away again. "It's just a precaution, you understand. My name is Tobias."

"My name is Aaron, and this is Daryl," Aaron followed up, clearly getting a read on the kid, just like he was. Reasonably sure he wasn't going to start nothin' unprovoked as they slowly rose to their feet. Giving the kid the hairy eyeball when he paused for a moment and flicked the safety on his piece before tucking it into his waistband.

 _Trusting._

If he had another eyebrow to arch at this point, he'd be all set.

"To answer your question, we _did_ have a place," the kid started conversationally, one hip cocked as the thin of his jeans highlighted just how skinny he actually was. The kinda that was border-line unhealthy and involved a bit too many home-made notches on your belt than it originally came with. "But we were hit by raiders. We got out – most of us anyway. But they set the place on fire once they'd gotten everything they could carry. We lost all our winter stores. All our supplies save for what we'd hidden in a few safe houses. Otherwise, they got everything worth taking."

He frowned, catching on to the casual way the squirt was talking as he and Aaron exchanged glances. The whole thing made him wonder just how long the guy had been listening before the baby started crying again. Everyone wincing as the sound carried.

"I have some apple sauce in my bag," Aaron said hurriedly, as the cries started increasing in volume. _Hungry cries._ He remembered those. "I don't know how old it she is, but it might be worth a try…help keep her quiet maybe?"

"He, actually," Tobias replied, nodding over his shoulder as a thin little stick of a man grabbed Aaron's pack and searched through it. Finding the jar and moving over to the ragged group by the fire. "His name is Ben. We lost his father, Nick, when the raiders hit. He was on watch with a couple others, they were sniped in the dark. They had guns, ammo, military vehicles. We were in a fortified supermarket that'd only ever had to deal with the occasional group of thieves and a few herds. We never had a chance. Sarah's milk is drying up. Probably the stress and the lack of food at this point, honestly. None of us have eaten in a few days. We were looking for formula but haven't had any luck yet."

"And you won't, not around here at least," he grunted, firm but not much in the way of suspicious anymore as something about the kid encouraged him to let his guard down. He seemed genuine. Good, even. Two things that seemed damn near impossible these days. But he was more than that. The kid was smart. And he'd kept his people safe. Gotten 'em this far even after everything that'd happened. "Everything is cleared out for about a hundred to two hundred miles in any direction. And not just by us. The roads north of here ain't safe. Those raiders were a Sunday picnic compared to some of the assholes we've had to deal with."

"I believe that," Tobias returned with a nod. Looking at them thoughtfully. In a way that pinged familiar before speaking again. "Now, I don't mean to be presumptuous, but from what I overheard you have a place? Somewhere safe? I won't deny we don't need it. A place to stay. Food. Water. Walls. But what I don't get is what you guys get out of it. What's the catch? You've been watching us - you know we have nothing to trade. And bringing in more mouths, especially with winter coming? That doesn't make sense to me."

"There's more to it than that. It's a future," Aaron explained, gesturing over to the baby and the others rings around it. "We have the ability to grow crops. We have electricity. Running water. Fruit trees. We have connections to other groups, trade routes. But good people are a valuable resource. And people that know how to make it out here are what we need if we're all going to survive long term."

Tobias stayed quiet, a skeptical wrinkle taking up residence between his eyes. Like he wanted to buy it, to make it simple, but he couldn't quite get himself there. It was something he could relate too. Remembering how it's sounded too good to be true. Impossible. Nothing more than a sick fucking joke when they were half starved, bone-tired and shit of luck.

"And what guarantee do I have that when we get there, it won't be another story? I would be putting every single one of my group at risk for something none of us knows is even _close_ to a sure thing."

Privately, his respect for the kid went up. Realizing in real time it was _more_ than sheer luck and a defensible place to call home that'd kept him alive all this time. Seeing shades of Rick in him, watered down and kinder - less jaded - but there none the less. Pragmatic, but not unkind, as Dale would've probably coined it.

The group ringed around them was quiet. Dry, worn and shuffling, but nowhere close to used up. They were still strong. Still had fight in 'em. And he could see like breathing that if Tobias gave the word, they would all just walk away.

People who had nothing but each other tended to take those bonds to the grave.

No matter what.

He knew he would.

Aaron was about to say something when he shook his head.

"There ain't no Kool-Aid to drink here, man," he rasped, chewing on a hangnail as the kid's dark eyes focused on him. "Me and my group were right where you were last year. And we had to make the same decision. We asked the same question. Hell, we roughed 'im up a little bit on top of it."

Gesturing over at Aaron as the man looked at him thoughtfully, smiling small. Remembering the smell of stale horse-shit and the clean, pleasant smell of him- of clean clothes, clean hair. Clean everything as he sounded out like a dream come true. Certain there had to be more to it than someone offering what felt like everything and more.

"Figured it was some sort of trick. Had to be, right? People don't give away nothin' for free these days, or ever. But it ain't free, not really. See, they needed us as much as we needed them. This place? Alexandria. It was soft in all the good ways, but soft in the bad ones too. They nearly got wiped out not long after we settled in."

"But we helped each other, that's the point. They taught us and we taught them. And I think- I think we can do the same here" Aaron broke in. "We all learned from each other and it made us stronger. _All of us._ Besides, these days we're safer in numbers."

For some reason it was that out of everything that made the kid still. Looking up through the dark band of his fringe as an expression he couldn't quite put a name to flirted with the hungry angles of the kid's face.

For a long, hitching moment, the kid was exactly that again.

 _A kid._

"When all this started. I knew. It felt like I was the _only one_ that knew. No one listened. And I said the same thing to Mrs C at school. She- well, it doesn't matter," he started, cutting himself off as his tongue peaked out to wet across his lower lip like an old, nervous tell. Chewing visibly on the inside of his cheek as he looked away with an angry swipe of his head.

"I was ahead of the curve enough to make myself look a little crazy in the beginning. The typical overacting, hormonal teenager, I guess. But before the internet went down, it was all out there, trickling in. You just had to know where to look. It was mostly unconfirmed, but there enough to make me think that the worst case scenario was really going to happen. So, when L.A fell, I figured it was safer with other people around. So I got into one of the safe zones. I didn't take risks. But- I was wrong. I learned the hard way that 'safer in numbers' isn't completely true. It's about _who_ you have. Who you choose to keep close. That's what counts in the long run. So tell me, are you and your people the right ones?"

The silence that followed was like the harsh of winter. Like the second before the weight of the ice-storm shattered the core of a thinning birch. The cold air heavy with the possibly of either disaster or disuse as the kid stared them down - unblinking.

"We're trying to be," Aaron answered after a long moment - belated and slow. Honest and stripped of all the usual tag lines and non-threatening words he normally used that were designed to put people at ease. Feeling them out before they extended their invitation for good.

But Tobias just nodded, apparently satisfied. Holding out his hand for Aaron and him to shake as the others took the silent cue for what it was and lowered their weapons. Talking quietly - excited and relieved - as the group by the fire slowly closed ranks with the others. Getting a glimpse of dark black hair suckling something fierce on one of his mother's fingers. Whimpering impatiently every time she paused to dip it back into the little jar of apple sauce. All three of them turning to watch as the baby burbled and the mother - tired and haggard as she was - smiled for the first time since they'd started watching them.

* * *

"This isn't our world anymore," Tobias remarked softly. Hours into later as the RV rocked half his group to sleep in the aisle. Looking out the window as somewhere in the distance the ruby-slice of a brush fire burned unchecked in the growing dark. "It's theirs. The dead's. We're just guests that have overstayed our welcome. We don't own anything anymore, if we ever did. The sooner we come to terms with that, the better."

Neither of them knew what to say to that.

Mostly because it was true.

* * *

There was a small crowd waiting at the gate when they pulled up. The by-product of them being a couple days late and packing some new faces as a couple of Tobias's people followed the RV in their own vehicles.

He figured it was by virtue of that alone - a moving gaggle of distractions and the possibility things could still go south - that it didn't happen sooner. Because damn near as soon as the crowd started to disperse, Eugene shoved his way through the wall of Spencer's shoulders and stopped dead on the blacktop.

"Toby?"

Everyone looked up immediately.

But the kid stalled.

Jerking in place – _electric_ \- like someone had gone and stuck a fork in him.

He turned on his heel. Watching Eugene watch the kid as Tobias kept his eyes down for a fraction of a beat longer than everyone else. Like he was trying to make himself believe it was all a mistake. Trying not to get his hopes up. Tempering anything that had the ability to wound him as he reminded himself that shit like this just didn't happen anymore.

 _Good things._

Things that crossed over from before.

Things like family and friends you'd long given up for dead.

But when Tobias did look up, it was all over.

And Eugene face?

 _Well-_

He figured there was a word for it.

There had to be after all.

But if there was, he sure as hell didn't know it.

Either way, it was the first time - just before Tobias dropped his shit and fucking _ran at him_ , stumbling into the gate with a deafening clang as he and Eugene hugged each other fiercely - the kid actually looked his age.

Young.

Vulnerable.

 _Hopeful._

He ducked his chin into his collar as Eric came to stand between them. Lacing his fingers with Aaron's as a growing smile hitched at the corners of everyone's mouths. Finding solace in this one, impossible thing as Tobias' group slowly moved forward. Enveloping the pair as they mussed up Tobias' hair with clear affection and cried salt-tracks with smiles on filthy faces.

Maybe there was hope for the world yet.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.

 **Reference:** In terms of etymology it means "fire of joy." – Also defined as the firing of guns as a symbol of joy, a bonfire, or a salute of musketry fired successively by each man in turn along a line and back.


End file.
